Long time readers of this blog will recall both my love of art and my previous posts about The IDEA Store and creative re-use art. On two separate occasions I participated in the Hatch Art Show. Recently, The IDEA Store expanded to include a new classroom as well as event space. This past weekend, on May 20th, 2016 to be specific, they held their grand opening of said event space. My camera and I were in attendance.

Before I get to the actual art, I’d like to share this photo of area artists Cindy Sampson and Melissa Mitchell. I don’t think I can fully express just how wonderful these two women are and how much they inspire me. Not only are they talented artists but they are good, kindhearted people and great friends. While I had taken a couple of standard photos of these two together, I managed to snap this shot in the midst of genuine laughter and storytelling.

And now, on to the art! These are only a small representation of the works currently on display at the IDEA Store gallery – my understanding is that they’ll be on display through at least June 3, 2016.

David Spears, “Conundrum”

I just thought this was a really interesting and clever way to use all the stray puzzle pieces that end up scattered about.

Christina Nordholm, “Dance Club”

Christina Nordholm, “Ready to Burn”

I particularly like the way she incorporates tree bark into these pieces. I really enjoy the texture. Of the two, I prefer “Ready to Burn” because I personally enjoy the energy coming from it. I’m not sure whether it’s more like looking into the heart of a bonfire or Hell itself. Either way, I like it.

Grace Savina, “Paintings Past”

I’m not quite sure what it is I’m looking at, but I kind of like that she managed to find a way to use old paint scraps. They almost look like little islands.

Grace Savina, “Dualities of Being”

Again, not sure what the artist intended for these to be, but, to me, they look like really colorful intestines. Like someone gutted a unicorn. Or it exploded and this was just a section of gut splatter. I kind of doubt this is what she was going for, but this is where my warped mind took it.

Barry Land, “Love is Dead”

I always get a kick of out this kind of artwork. I have absolutely NO skill for it myself, but scrap-metal sculptures always make me smile. This one also makes me sad, though.

This is one of those pieces I would totally hang in my apartment, provided I had the money and the space. I don’t really have anything profound to say here, this piece is just Cool. As. F**k. Look that the close-up shots of that texture. Who knew all those little bits and pieces scattered about the garage could look like this?

Cindy Sampson, “Landscape”

Cindy Sampson, “Lone Tree”

I wish I could have gotten a better shot of this one. This was actually my favorite piece of the show and I couldn’t even really capture why. Because I’m too short and it was hanging too high for me to get a head on shot. The glare from the lighting at this angle does this piece a serious injustice. I’m sure you can make out the main tree of in the painting. It seems to stand amidst a field of ghost trees. What you cannot see well in this photo, is that the paperwork underneath has faded building plans printed on it. To me, it seems to say suggest that this tree lost all of it’s friends and family to ever increasing urban expansion.The fruit and rust stains have the look of blood to me. Yeah, my mind is dark. I am very drawn to artwork like this where I can find and this kind of haunting meaning in it. It’s the kind of art the speaks to me on some deeper level.

I am not above using scare tactics to keep my dolls in line. “This is what happens when you use my fabric scissors to cut paper”

I feel like I should be writing something. I also feel like I should be getting around to actually making some videos. I’ve been saying for awhile (over a year, while not necessarily always in this blog) that I want to start making Youtube videos.
-I invested the time and the money into decorating the walls in my craft room because I felt like I couldn’t start doing it unless I had a good background.

Earlier this weekend, I went out to ACME Elfworks – my friend Melissa Mitchell’s studio -for the Annual Boneyard Arts festival. She’s a super cool re-use artist that uses a lot of found objects in her artwork. Many of her pieces incorporate dolls or various doll body parts. Her artwork is often whimsical, but can also be kind of creepy – and I love that. I first met her whilst I was involved with the HATCH art show about 3 years ago. I just happened to have my camera with me and have decided to share some of these photos with you all.

❤ the cart full of rats

Reminds me of Sid’s creation from the original Toy Story movie.

In case you were curious what became of Charlie Horse. He couldn’t cope after Lamb Chop’s Play Along ended – his heart was broken after he caught Lamb in bed with Hush Puppy and turned to drugs and gambling. Sherry Lewis attempted an intervention once before her death, but Charlie refused rehab. Unable to pay his debts one night, he was taken into a back alley where he was beaten to death. His lifeless body was thrown into a dumpster. I believe this is where Melissa found his little pony corpse. Not entirely sure what she did with the rest of the body. It’s possible her cats ate it.

A lush garden of doll heads. Melissa hacks off their scalps and uses them as macabre planters. This is a thing I shall someday do when I have a garden of my own.

I love the way her lifeless eyes are glazed over. Even in death, Barbie continues to smile.

Lately I have been trying my best to quell my wanting for new dolls. As it is, I do have a fair amount and rather than just to continue amassing more of them, it’s best that I try to focus on the ones I currently have. Though, I *did* pick up some recent acquisitions that I didn’t really even pay anything for. Yay free dollies!

Wait? FREE?? Yeah, free. Ok, $3 and some change. But practically free. Some months back I signed up for a Toys R Us credit card. Basically, the card accumulates points for dollar that I spend. Those points add up to money back that I can spend at Toys R Us. This haul was the result of earning $50 worth of points. There are probably better options out there for cash back or rewards and certainly lower interest rates. But this post isn’t so much about the card, as this is really my first foray into credit cards. I avoided them like the plague through college and even now they scare me just a bit. I have personally known too many people get hurt by them. I do not advise getting a credit card unless you have enough income to not be struggling from paycheck to paycheck and/or have very strong will power. It is very easy to think that a line of credit is like an emergency fund. IT IS NOT. I spend my credit the way I would spend my debit card – on stuff I would normally buy that I have the funds for in the bank. Then I pay it off in full (not the minimum) and as soon as what I’ve spent posts to the account. All of that said, let’s get into the dolls.

So, if you look at the above photo, you’ll see that I got myself three of the Made to Move (MtM)dolls and two Fashionistas. I’d had the brunette and Asian MtM dolls already. I got two more of them for the sole purpose of rebodying.

Miss Candy Jumper (I haven’t yet given her an identity) didn’t quite match up with the brunette’s color. As you can see, she was a closer match to one of the Liv dolls I had laying around.

Livs aren’t as wondrously articulate as MtMs, but, before MtMs came on the market, Livs were about the best that could be had in play line articulation. Unfortunately, Liv heads are

Oops!

a much harder and less malleable material than Barbie heads. I had quite a bit of trouble. This doll did not wish to be decapitated. It was like I could almost hear her screaming. In the end, I pulled too hard and the little internal neck piece popped out and is now rattling inside the Liv head. But, I still want to use that Liv body, so, what do I do? I had to perform a trickier transplant…

Now, what you’re about to see may be gruesome. I extracted the part I needed from an older body in my dolly morgue. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

It took some intense skill and precision on my part, but the transplant was successful! Let’s just hope these new parts aren’t rejected down the road. I don’t think Miss Candy Jumper wants to go through this ordeal again!

¡Gracias! Puedo doblar mis rodillas!

Here are all the new dollies, out of the boxes and post-op (I’m still working on the 5th):

So far, the only one I have a name for is the blonde curvy one. I’ve chosen to name her Diane, after my mother. I don’t really know why, she just reminds me of my mom. I’ll have to make her a new outfit (Mom was never one for dresses) and a little bandana.

My mother being radiant. The tiny one is me, around 3 years old. Gonna say this was 1988.

My last post that showcased the new Barbies has gotten more views than any other post and in an incredibly short amount of time.

It’s been about a month now since my last posting. I’d actually written a rather long piece a few days back, but given its overly personal nature, I decided not to publish it. I don’t view it as a wasted effort, as the entire process was more therapeutic than anything. It needed to be written, it felt good to write it, but it just ultimately wasn’t destined to be shared. I know you understand.

I do have some updates to share with you all before I move on to new projects. Perhaps the biggest piece of news is that I have officially been accepted into grad school. It’s been a couple of weeks now, there was a big post about it on my personal Facebook, and a lot of the buzz from it has worn off since then. But it’s still pretty great news. I don’t know yet how that will affect this blog or any of my (still unfinished) projects as full-time school + a full-time job + a part-time job is already going to deplete a lot of my time. We’ll see how it goes. Classes won’t start for another three months yet, so don’t abandon me yet!

My new desktop set-up, nicely integrated into my craft room.

My next update is that I have finally managed to get myself a new computer. After discovering there is simply no way I can utilize Pinnacle on my laptop, I pooled the collective knowledge of all my techie friends together and got myself a new desktop that I’ll be using primarily for video and photo editing. I haven’t done a whole lot with it yet beyond just playing around with the new programs and learning how they work. It is a goal to launch Youtube content this year, but I don’t yet have a predicted timeline for it. I’m hoping to have a better understanding of what I’m doing before school starts.

In project news, I’ve decided to try out another re-root. After watching one of MyFroggyStuff’s recent videos I was inspired to try this out myself.

I’d already had a few doll heads that had been removed of hair that had been sitting in a box this past year, so I opted to use of of those. I decided to test out two different yarns – a soft, worsted weight, wool-like acrylic and a cotton crochet thread. I did a sample row with four sections to try out each of these yarns in both their intact and unraveled states.

My original plans for this particular doll when I first got her from a thrift store over a year ago, was for her to be a family member for my Lammily doll, Morrigan. If you’ll recall, when I envisioned a backstory for Morrigan, I determined that she has an Irish mother and a Turkish father. My first re-root doll was originally intended to be a maternal cousin, but fate had another purpose in store for her and I have since found a different doll to fill that role (more about her in a later post). As it turns out, I’ve decided to alter the identity and relationship of this particular doll as well. (Spoilers!!! Since the Lammily company has announced their plans for a new male doll (currently being crowdfunded and due to begin shipping out in November), and because this new male doll looks similar to his female
counterpart in the face, it makes more sense to me to have him be a brother for Morrigan. And while Morrigan does not have any romantic inclinations at the moment, that doesn’t mean her brother doesn’t!)

Be super careful pulling out the original hair plugs. I accidentally blew out this woman’s forehead. I *did* find a way to fix this (Behold: Magic!), but I think I’m going to wait until after this first doll’s head is done before I mess with it.

“Carrot Cake” looks much more like strawberry blonde in person. Next time I will get a different shade.

Even my camera is deceptive!

I really have no idea how thick or thin these hair plugs need to be. Never having done this before and being worried about making her hair too sparse and thin, I think I may have made her hair *too* thick. Her head is only maybe half done and is already as thick as my Lammily’s.

I’ve taken my in-progress doll head to work and have shown both my co-workers and the teenagers at the shelter. The reactions and looks on the faces of these kids has been priceless (they’re already used to me being “weird”, lol!)

So, I’m moving again in about a month. I’m steadily working on getting all of my stuff packed up. I’ve been sorting through all of my yarn, fabric, and general arty and crafty stuff. Some of it I am keeping, some of it I will be donating to local second hand stores, like The I.D.E.A. Store.

So, quick and dirty — How many of you remember The Rag Rug? I spent over a year on it, I blogged about it: Here, Here, and Here. I only managed to get several months of use out of it before I moved into this place (where I have no room for it) and, now, the apartment I am going to be moving into is carpeted and I won’t need it there. I spent a long time and a lot of effort on this rug and I don’t want to just get rid of it, BUT, I don’t really need it. And I’m a big enough pack rat as it is. Therefore, if there is anyone out there interested in having this rug, you’re welcome to it for whatever the cost is of getting it to you. If you’re local, it’s free. If you’re halfway around the world, it’s going to cost you some money as the rug is pretty hefty. It measures 3 feet x 7 feet 3 inches.

If you’re interested, email me at foxchic85@yahoo.com with “Rug” as a header. First come, first serve.

—————– UPDATE——————

The rug has found itself a new home. Thank you to everyone that expressed interest.

So, welcome to 2014. New year, new chances to lie to myself about blogging more regularly and finishing unfinished projects. This will not be a polished entry, this may even get personal. Maybe. Right now I’m just typing words as they escape my brain between shoving unhealthy snacks in my face.

I’ve got my laptop next to me, with my camera, my sewing machine is out, and I have bits of fabric on the table. What follows is an insight into my creative and thought processes, raw, unedited – chaotic and probably going nowhere. But why am I still typing crap? Here – look at some pictures.

This is some sexy lingerie I bought several years ago. I only wore them once. They don’t even fit me anymore. I’m going to chop them up. Why not?

Chop CHOP! Choppy Chop! Lace is pretty.

Oh, remember these? Yeah, I’m still not sure what to do with them, but, they’re sitting in a pile on the table.

This looks kind of neat.

CRAP! I need pink thread! The stores are closed! All I have is embroidery and hand quilting thread! Grrr…

Do I want to just sew it with a contrasting thread color? Or use embroidery thread? I don’t want to wait until morning. I’m pushing through, making do, not putting it off. Embroidery thread it is. Such is life. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be perfect. It can be messy, it can be chaotic, and it will be ok. It will. I promise. Screw the fairy tales and the picture perfect notions of what should be. The harder you push it, the less idyllic/idealistic it will be. Ideallic. Is that a word? Screw it. It is now. #Ideallic. Go trend that crap.

Yeah, neither of those quite do it for me quite the way it feels in my mind standing by themselves. Oh, so, here’s a thing I’ve been working on off and on that I don’t think I’ve posted about:

I got the pattern from Urban Threads. It’s going to take me eons. Ok. I’m getting kind of sleepy. I think I’m going to post this and come back to this in the morning. Maybe I’ll get a stock of posts done to schedule over the next few weeks. Maybe I can be more regular. Maybe I can convince myself that I don’t actually NEED to have a point or well-formed idea. Maybe I can stop avoiding the blog and the facebook page when I haven’t finished any of my many unfinished projects. Maybe.